It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "King City" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.Diane's search to reconnect with her son and Jackie's search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: "King City". It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.

    He is kidnapped. He escapes, narrowly. The only person he tells is his best friend, Conner. When they arrive in London as planned for summer break, a stranger hands Jack a pair of glasses. Through the lenses, he sees another world called Marbury.There is war in Marbury. It is a desolate and murderous place where Jack is responsible for the survival of two younger boys. Conner is there, too. But he’s trying to kill them.Meanwhile, Jack is falling in love with an English girl, and afraid he’s losing his mind.Conner tells Jack it’s going to be okay.But it’s not.Andrew Smith has written his most beautiful and personal novel yet, as he explores the nightmarish outer limits of what trauma can do to our bodies and our minds.

    It is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession - showing mercy toward his victim - and follows his subsequent journey out of his home city of Nessus.

    A young woman’s destiny. Lorness Carol, coming of age in the kingdom of her warlord father, Lord Rafel, aspires to wield magic. But she’s also unknowingly become the obsession of Kragan, an avenging wielder as old as evil itself. He’s waited centuries to find and kill the female prophesied as the only human empowered to destroy him. However, dispatching the king’s assassin, Blade, to Rafel’s Keep, ends in treason. For Blade arrives not with a weapon but rather a warning for the woman he’s known and loved since he was a child. With a price on his head, Blade flees—as Carol and her family are urged away on their own desperate route of escape.Now, traversing the lawless western borderlands, Carol struggles to understand the uncanny magic she possesses and must learn to master. Though separated, Carol and Blade are still united—not only by the darkness pursuing them both but by a quest toward destiny, revenge, and the revelations of an ancient prophecy that signal the ultimate war between good and evil.

    The old world order collapsed following the meteor impacts of 2031 when fire rained down from the skies, instantly vaporizing millions. Billions more died during the Long Winter and resource wars that followed. Over one hundred years have passed since those devastating events and new societies have formed around the globe. In North America, the fragile peace that exists among the continent’s independent nations and city-states is under threat. The ambitious Grand Guardian of the People's Republic of America is mobilizing his massive war machine in order to make real his dream of reunifying a former great power. But on the eve of the offensive, a leading scientist dies under mysterious circumstances, though not before he entrusts another with the key to unlocking a secret. A secret so powerful, it could not only unravel the Grand Guardian’s designs, but also doom, or save, all of humanity.

    Dick wrote more than one hundred short stories, each as mind-bending and genre-defining as his longer works. Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams collects ten of the best from across his career. In “Autofac,” Dick shows us one of the earliest examples (and warnings) in science fiction of self-replicating machines. “Exhibit Piece” and “The Commuter” feature Dick exploring one of his favorite themes: the shifting nature of reality, and whether it is even possible to really perceive the world as it is. And “The Hanging Stranger” provides a thrilling, dark political allegory as relevant today as it was when it was written at the height of the Cold War.   Strange, funny, and powerful, the stories in this collection highlight a master at work, drawing on his boundless imagination and deep understanding of the human condition.

    Most people thank President Meyers for this. Many can no longer remember when there was last an election, but as long as he keeps the country safe from the terrorist group Hariq Jihad (‘Fire War’), this seems a small price to pay. Gunnery Sergeant Anthony Jackson is the model Marine: highly trained, absolutely efficient, and unquestioningly dedicated to his country. The only thing he can conceive of putting before his nation is his family, his wife Courtney and two daughters Maya and MacKenzie. Conscripted into the personal security detail of President Meyers, he begins to get glimpses that not everyone is as content with the current situation as he is, but attributes this to terrorist agitation and fringe lunacy. When his older daughter Maya begins to question the creeping erosion of personal liberties and the revoking of democratic rights, however, he begins to fear for her safety, as well as his own and that of his family. In a climate in which entire families disappear due to minor offenses, one can’t be too careful. The tensions between liberty and safety, between family and country, will force Jackson to rethink all his beliefs, and lead to a collision with the system he has dedicated his life to serving. Fire War is a suspenseful, gripping and unnerving examination of the paradoxes of power, the price of liberty, and the dictates of conscience. The world you live in will never look the same again.

    Now she's awakened a nightmare. During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope...

    This is the story of one man's journey.Down on his luck and with his back against a wall, John Crussel would do anything to provide for his family. Even rob a bank out of desperation. But when he hears of how he can make money in a virtual reality video game called Alterlife, he walks away from the robbery and decides to give it a shot.Couldn't be harder than robbing a bank, could it?John's world is about to change as he finds that Alterlife is easier than it seems. But being a hotshot new guy that seems to have all the luck draws the attention of some dangerous people in Alterlife - ones that want what he has and are willing to do anything for it.Through a series of unfortunate events, John becomes the first to contract a deadly virus. Now he only has ten days to live. He soon finds himself tied to a sinister plot and realizes that his misfortune may not be a coincidence.The virus was designed to kill players outside of the game. And John was targeted to be the carrier.All John Crussel wanted was to make some easy money.He thought Alterlife was just a game...This high stakes novel depicts John's struggle both in and out of virtual reality. Fans of Otherland by Tad Williams, World of Warcraft, and Skyrim will feel right at home in Alterlife. "Complex, fast paced and filled with lots of intrigue, it's a page turner from start to finish." - William B.Grab your copy today!

    Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe. And then he sees the flying saucer. Even stranger, the alien ship he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders. No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it. It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little…familiar? At once gleefully embracing and brilliantly subverting science-fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline could, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you’ve ever read before—one whose every page is infused with the pop-culture savvy that has helped make Ready Player One a phenomenon.

    This is James Patterson's best book ever.TotalFor 36 years, James Patterson has written unputdownable, pulse-racing novels. Now, he has written a book that surpasses all of them. ZOO is the thriller he was born to write.WorldAll over the world, brutal attacks are crippling entire cities. Jackson Oz, a young biologist, watches the escalating events with an increasing sense of dread. When he witnesses a coordinated lion ambush in Africa, the enormity of the violence to come becomes terrifyingly clear.DestructionWith the help of ecologist Chloe Tousignant, Oz races to warn world leaders before it's too late. The attacks are growing in ferocity, cunning, and planning, and soon there will be no place left for humans to hide.

    But he is getting old and the hate that he has carried in his heart since a group of dragon-soldiers killed his family is beginning to fade. When he kills the royal prince dragon, the king decides the only retribution is genocide of the human race. Bitterwood is forced to enter the Free City, the grand trap designed to eradicate mankind, with thousands of others. Can he lead from within, or can a select few dragons unite to stop the king's madness from becoming reality. Full of rich characters and drama, this is an amazingly astute vision of our own culture by way of a feudal kingdom where dragons rule, and humans are used as workers or pets.